Half-Life: Alyx has been out for about a month now and there’s already a pretty active modding scene for the game. If you’re interested in how to find, download and install custom maps and mods for Half-Life: Alyx, we’ve got you covered.
Official support from Valve for “community built” environments, along with an updated version of their authoring tool Hammer, is still on the way. However, that hasn’t stopped the modding community, who have already found a way to run a modified version of Hammer to work with Half-Life: Alyx entities. This means some interesting mods and custom maps are already available, if you know where to look.
A warning before you get started: custom Alyx content often uses late-game mechanics, items and characters, and will probably spoil lots of the game, including the ending. Don’t go any further if you haven’t finished the campaign and want to avoid spoilers.
Finding Maps
The hub for all Alyx community content at the moment is the Half-Life: Alyx Modding Hub Discord server. It’s here that you’ll find links to the release of new maps and mods, along with guides and channels offering support to prospective mappers and modders.
You can join the server with this invite link. Once you’ve joined, check out the #released-maps and #featured-maps channels. The former is channel for anyone to post their custom maps, which might vary in quality, and the latter is where the server admins highlight a selection of particularly well-made or important custom maps.
Downloading Maps
The Discord server is the most active hub for custom maps, but you might find other modders link to their Alyx content elsewhere online.
No matter the source, whatever you download should either be a VPK file (short for Valve Pak File — basically a map file for Alyx to read) or a compressed archive, like a RAR or ZIP file. If it’s the former, you’re good to go. If it’s the latter, simply uncompress the file — there should be a VPK file inside.
HLALauncher
Once you’ve got your VPK files ready to go, you’ll want to launch them.
It is possible to launch custom maps in Alyx using the in-game console commands. However, this requires you to take off your headset and enter commands using your computer’s keyboard. Instead, we suggest using HLALauncher by JetLennit. The program is easy to use and makes loading up custom maps a breeze.
To get the launcher:
1. Head over to Github and download the latest release.
2. Once downloaded, extract the ZIP file.
3. If you want to make things super easy when playing, move all your custom map files into to the HLALauncher folder you just extracted.
You’re now ready to play custom Alyx maps.
Launching A Custom Map
Before launching a custom map, make sure your headset is powered on and ready to go. Because we’re using HLALauncher, you don’t want to open Alyx yourself — the launcher will do that for you.
1. Inside the launcher folder, locate an application called ‘hlalauncher.exe’.
2. Locate the custom VPK file for the map you want to play.
3. Drag it on the hlalauncher.exe file. This will open the launcher, which looks like a command line window.
3. Shortly after, the launcher should boot up Alyx and send you straight into the custom map. Put your on headset and get playing!
One thing to note — if you’re Alyx install folder is different than the default install path for a Windows C:// drive, then you’ll need to direct the launcher’s command line window to your Alyx installation before it can run a custom map. You can read more about this in the readme text file for the launcher. If you want, you can also follow the instructions in the readme to set the launcher as the default program for VPK files, allowing you to simply double click a map file to launch straight into the game and play it.
Saving and Switching
You can save your progress in a custom map, just like normal levels. If you do make a save point, the only way to reset a custom map is to quit Alyx and bring it up with the launcher again. Just be aware that saving midway through will be useful in some maps and a hindrance in others. Depending on the mod you’re playing, it’s sometimes better to respawn right from the beginning again.
If you want to switch between custom maps, you have to quit Half-Life: Alyx entirely and then drop the new map onto launcher to start it up again.
That should cover finding, downloading and launching custom Half-Life: Alyx mods and maps. What’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
The post How To Find, Download And Install Half-Life: Alyx Mods And Custom Maps appeared first on UploadVR.
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